I don't think I could have just kept writing the 'Richard Jury' books. It wasn't that I was bored or dissatisfied. I just had to write something else.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I had novels to write, so I wrote them.
One of the things I had to learn as a writer was to trust the act of writing. To put myself in the position of writing to find out what I was writing. I did that with 'World's Fair,' as with all of them. The inventions of the book come as discoveries.
I got put on jury duty, which is where I learned how to write.
It is also one of the pleasures of oral biography, in that the reader, rather than editor, is jury.
I considered that I had to write stories about the people I had met, with whom I'd worked, the history of my books - just in case I up and die.
Every year, the Giller jury is different. You write the best book you can and throw it out there.
When I wrote 'Lord of the Flies' - I had no idea it would even get published.
I was quite a reader before I became a writer.
I'm glad I wrote them when I did because I think if I were to write my first novel now, it would be a different book, and it may not be the book that everybody wants to read. But if I were given a red pen now, and I went back... I'd take that thing apart.
I continued writing the bad plays which fortunately nobody would produce, just as no one did me the unkindness of publishing my early novels.
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